The invention relates to a permanent magnet material and a bonded magnet.
Hitherto, as a type of high-property permanent magnets of rare earth elements, Sm--Co magnets and Nd--Fe--B magnets and the like have been known. These high-property magnets are used in electric appliances such as a speaker, a motor and a measuring tool. As the demand for miniaturizing various electric appliances is elevated in recent years, the demand for developing a higher property permanent magnet is raised.
In compliance with such a demand, the inventors suggested a TbCu.sub.7 type compound and a nitride thereof which have a high saturation magnetization and excellent magnetic properties in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-172936 and Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 9-74006.
The magnet material having the TbCu.sub.7 type crystal structure as a principal phase is generally produced via a rapid quenching process such as a melt spun process and a mechanical alloying process. However, magnetic properties of resulting magnet material are often changed by a condition of the above-mentioned process, so as to make it difficult to produce a high property magnet material stably.